


Liking Minerva

by oxfordarmadillo



Category: Community
Genre: F/M, Gen, Inspector Spacetime - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-27
Updated: 2013-02-27
Packaged: 2017-12-03 18:42:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/701421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oxfordarmadillo/pseuds/oxfordarmadillo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Abed liked his friends. He wanted his friends to be happy. So he let Britta like Minerva.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Liking Minerva

**Author's Note:**

> "Wait, was there a female Inspector?"  
> "Yes, and everyone hates her. Not because they're sexist. Because she sucks."  
> -Abed and Britta, Conventions of Space and Time.

Poor Minerva

It wasn't her fault, not really. That horrific hat the costume-designers crammed on her head; her convoluted back story; Camilla Silsbury's grating voice, screeching out that much-loathed catchphrase - " _No one calls me baby!_ "  - which ignored the fact that no one, indeed, ever even tried to call Minerva baby... Giving a character like that to a fandom so notorious for picking every last detail apart was like throwing a newborn baby to rabid dogs. The poor thing never had a chance.

It was said by some that Silsbury never wanted the job in the first place, and that her complete apathy was the reason for her poor performance. Others thought her character only existed to win over to the women of Britain, and that the blame for her two-dimensional characterization lay in the show’s desire to appeal to feminists. Many fans blamed the writers, insisting that Silsbury lacked the charm and whimsy so often displayed by the other incarnations of the Inspector.

Abed, unsurprisingly, disagreed. It wasn’t the writers, the producers, or the actress. It wasn’t the hat or the twisted up mess that constituted her backstory. It wasn’t even the catchphrase. Minerva just sucked. You couldn’t blame a sky for being blue, you couldn’t blame an ocean for being wet, you couldn’t blame _Kickpuncher_ for kicking and punching, and you couldn’t blame Minerva for sucking. It was the way things were.

Britta liked Minerva. 

Abed didn’t agree, but he understood. Britta had never seen an _Inspector Spacetime_ episode that featured Minerva. It didn’t matter whether or not the character was good. On the surface, just on the surface, she was a feminist role model: a woman in a position usually held by a man. Minerva was a symbol, and Britta was a sucker for symbols. She didn’t like Minerva; she liked what Minerva represented. That was all.

In their first year at Greendale, Abed would have pointed this out to her, but things were different now. Britta and Troy were dating, and that changed things. Abed could see it happening. Everyone stopped calling Britta “the worst”. She was no more a subject for ridicule than any other member of the study group. She was, it seemed, happier.

Abed could see everything. He could analyze, reanalyze, figure out dynamics and play out simulations. Granted, he couldn’t see the future. He could predict events, but those predictions were never a certainty. There were too many variables, too much dependent on chance. All he could do was guess.

This much was obvious: Britta liked Minerva, and Britta liked Troy. If Britta stopped to think about _why_ , then everything could come falling down, and as much as he missed constantly being with his best friend, Abed didn’t want that to happen.

Because Troy was a symbol, too. He was a good guy, the first good guy Britta had dated in a long time, possibly ever. Dating him was a new step, a sign of emotional maturity. Maybe he was more than that, but they were just in the early stages, still figuring their relationship out. It was too soon to tell.

Abed liked his friends. He wanted his friends to be happy. So he let Britta like Minerva. He didn’t drag her to a television or laptop and get her to watch the episodes before coming to conclusion. He didn’t complain, not too much. When she wore the Minerva T-shirt, he said that she was “pushing it”, but left it at that.

Abed didn’t know what was coming. He couldn’t tell how things would work out. He couldn’t even tell how he _wanted_ things to work out. If things got bad, if Britta and Troy seemed unhappy, maybe then he would give them his observations. For now, things seemed good. For now, he would keep quiet.

The next time he watched the Minerva episodes, he watched himself watching them, wondering if the Troy/Britta situation would alter his perception of the female Inspector. It didn’t change the show - Minerva still sucked - but seeing her suck gave him a sense of uncomfortable dread. For the first time, he wanted her to be good. He wanted a woman to be Inspector Spacetime and to _not suck_. He wanted the character to live up to the symbol.

Maybe next incarnation. Maybe next time.


End file.
